ACT
1 - THE BUS
As
the light and the noise abated silence fell on the bus. The teacher looked
around, trying to get his bearings and find out what happened. The seventh
graders behind him started to murmur, quietly at first then louder and louder.
Soon it became a cacophony, and the teacher couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Silence,
SILENCE!!”
The
noise stopped. The teacher looked at his colleague and then at the driver who
was staring out of the window, his face ashen.
“Oh
my god. OH MY GOD. Everything is huge… no we’re TINY” the driver
exclaimed. “Somebody must have used that shrink thing on us. You know, the one
everyone is talking about.”
Teacher
felt fear rising in the back of his mind.
“Ok,
ok, stay calm” he thought.
“Ok
everyone, calm down” he yelled. “I’m going outside to check.”
The
bus driver opened the door and the teacher stepped out while his colleague
tried to calm and console the students. The driver wasn’t wrong, they HAVE
shrunk. The bus couldn’t have been more than seven and a half inches (20 cm)
long and a couple of inches tall. To the right of the bus, he could see the
curb, which was at least three times as tall as the bus.
The
shift in perspective was mind-numbing. He could barely grasp it. But if he
thought the curb and the trees above were the most unbelievable thing, he was
wrong. What he saw next shook him to his very core. There was a person on the
bus stop, pacing left and right. And what a person. She was absolutely,
mind-bogglingly ENORMOUS. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing was an actual
real human being yet there she stood. Or rather walked.
Somewhere
in his frozen mind an idea formed. A lifesaving idea. He returned to the bus
and yelled “OK, everyone OUT. Listen to me carefully and it will be ok.”
The
student started to exit the bus, faces frozen in fear and uncharacteristically
silent as they inspected their surroundings. Several students gasped and
pointed at the giantess above.
“OMG”
“Fuck
me…”
“Aaaahh.”
“I…
I KNOW her! That’s Una from 7b!!”
“ENOUGH”
the teacher yelled. “Here, help me here. Ok guys, spread out. SPREAD OUT! We
will form the word *help* with our bodies. Just like when we took that school
group photo with a drone.”
Both
teachers and the driver were trying to organize the students, until a poorly
shaped *help* emerged. Or so they hoped.
“Now,
I want all of you to yell and wave. But don’t move!”
All
forty of them started yelling, jumping, and waving, trying to attract the
colossus above. And it worked!
The
teacher could hear his heart beating loudly. He couldn’t believe their luck.
She stopped and was looking straight at them. A curious look formed on her face,
and she started to bend towards them a little.
“YES,
YES!! She can see us, wave!” the teacher felt immense relief clouded only by
some thunderous noise in the distance. Noise that was getting louder.
The
giantess must have heard the same thing because she suddenly straightened her
back and looked to her left.
“NO,
no!” The teacher yelled and turned right to see what was causing that noise and
the increasing vibrations of the asphalt. In the distance he saw a huge blue
SUV coming down the road towards them.
“It’s
ok, ok, ok” he told himself as much as the others “it is on the road, we’re not
in its way.”
He
looked back toward the huge teen and saw she was waving and beaming towards the
incoming car. The teacher froze for a moment, then looked towards the SUV
again. The approaching car was flashing its right indicator (yes, a BMW was actually
indicating). They clearly planned to pick the girl up.
“OH
MY GOD, back to the bus, it’s coming towards us, quickly” the driver screamed,
and they all fled into the bus in panic. The driver sat in his seat and tried
to turn on the engine.
The
rumble coming from behind was so loud the whole bus vibrated from it.
“Listen
to me. Everyone duck and cover, under the seats. Now!” the teacher yelled.
If
they don’t manage to avoid the huge tires, they would have to protect
themselves SOMEHOW if they wanted to survive. He had no doubts that the roof would
cave in if they got hit, but the sides of the bus looked reassuringly sturdy,
and the seat legs were made of steel. They could withstand a lot of weight and
they should stand a good chance of avoiding the worst injuries if contact with
the giant SUV was brief enough. It will be like a plastic toy-it cracks but
doesn’t cave.
“We
might just get through this” he thought in panic as the rumble of the
approaching tire produced a deafening sound. All the students were whimpering
beneath their seats.
He
ducked too, throwing one last look at the back seat. That’s where the cool kids
sat, and he didn’t want them to do something foolish at this moment. Fortunately,
they were all safely under the seat. Through the back window he saw the rubbery
tire fill out the entire horizon. He doubted anyone could hear him over the
vibrations and noise but still yelled “HERE IT COMES, HANG ON!!”
The
teacher had grossly miscalculated- completely overestimating their odds. He was
thinking rationally, but his mind couldn’t comprehend their new reality and
completely misunderstood the difference in size and weight involved. He thought
in terms of “getting hit”, “duck and cover”, “crash protection”, “sturdy” and
other rational terms, but nothing mattered at their size.
The
toy bus looked comically small in front of the approaching BMW’s extra wide
tire. The tire was at least as wide as the length of several such buses
combined- not to mention as tall as a skyscraper. And it weighted as much, if
not more. And that was just one tire, not counting the rest of the huge car and
its passengers, the weight of each of whom could have easily flattened the bus
by itself. The tiny bus stood no chance even if its passengers didn’t realize
it.
As
the car approached it finally started to roll over the back of the bus. It
leaned on the section of the roof covering the last three rows. The roof
immediately caved in and as the tire continued to mercilessly roll forward the
front part of the bus rose in air. The SUV effortlessly mangled the whole back
half of the bus, the massive mountain of unyielding rubber descended on the
seats which cracked and collapsed not offering any resistance whatsoever, which
was immediately followed by the sound of the gargantuan tire popping the sixth
graders hiding under the seats like tiny grapes. It didn’t stop there of
course. The tire proceeded to press the squashed mix of metal and organic mush
and crunched the engine. The engine exploded, but the enormous tire snuffed any
hint of the fire and drama that would usually accompany such an event. The tire
rolled forward until the entire toy bus disappeared and was ground as flat as a
sheet of paper under it.
If
the whole incident was filmed with a slow-motion camera all those gruesome
details would be discernible, but in reality, it took the SUV less than a
second to pulp the tiny bus and its contents with a wet crunch as it rolled to
a stop.
The
SUV was stationary for a moment, what remained of the little bus holding its
entire weight. A door opened and closed. Then, the tires turned sharply to the
left, grinding the flat piece of metal under them even further and shredding
it. Some of it was left on the hard asphalt but most was stuck in the deep
threads of the SUV’s winter tires. With a sudden lurch the car sped up and
continued down the street.
ACT
2 - UNA
Una
paced along the bus stop in front of the school while listening to music through
the Air Pods. She was happy because her sister was back in town, and they are
going shopping with mom.
As
she walked something caught her attention and she turned, looking at the floor.
There on the bus stop a bus was parked, not a real bus but a small toy. She
wondered how it got there, concluding it was probably forgotten by one of the
younger pupils from school.
“Hmm,
perhaps I should move it to the side, so it doesn’t get damaged” she thought.
Unfortunately,
then she saw a bunch of weird bugs swarming around it. She couldn’t recognize
what kind of bugs they were, but she could barely make out their little
antennas waving frantically. “Yuck, I’m not touching that toy if it’s dirty”
Una thought. She was about to lean for a closer look at the strange bugs when
she heard the noise of a car on her left. She straightened her back and turned
towards the noise.
It
was mom’s blue BMW X5, and she could see mom and Tena beaming from the front
seats.
She smiled and waved as the car quickly approached her.
“The
toy!” she remembered as the car was almost next to her and turned her gaze back
down, right in time to see the huge wheel roll over it with a soft metallic
crunch and then stop right on top of it.
“Ouch”
she thought “well that settles it. I guess mom didn’t see it. This will be a
good lesson to the kid who lost it.”
She
didn’t remember seeing any of the bugs around the toy before the wheel
steamrolled it, so she assumed they were spooked by the sound of the car. For
their sake she hoped they ran away rather than trying to find shelter within
the toy. It must have looked like a sturdy shelter to them but judging by
the crunch it produced mom totally pancaked it.
“Hello
pumpkin” Una’s mom beamed as Una opened the door and sat.
“Hiii”
Una replied enthusiastically.
“Come
here you little brat” Tena undid her seatbelt and turned around to smooch her
on the cheek. Una felt loved and happy.
“What
were you looking for there on the floor?” mom asked?
“Oh,
some kid left a toy bus on the bus stop.” Una laughed “I thought about moving
it to safety but then you rolled over it.”
“Awww,
poor teeny bus, I think I saw some yellow dot but assumed it was just a leave.
You know in all my years of driving this is my first traffic accident EVER
girls!” mom said jokingly while turning the steering wheel to the left and
checking her left-wing mirror “Fortunately our car seems undamaged, how did
they fare pumpkin?”
“Crunched
like a piece of chips. And I think you just turned our wheels on it, so I guess
also smeared on our tire lol.”
“Well,
I guess I hope they have health insurance” mom said as she pressed the
accelerator and merged back on the street.
They
all laughed as the powerful SUV sped towards the shopping mall.